“Stop pretending like everything is fine, Jenna.” It’s the first time he’s used my name, the first time he’s called me something other than “princess” or “cupcake.”
In the light from the bike’s headlamp, his face looks drawn, his gray eyes dark.
“Was it Brock? That fucker with the time-share?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Nathan?” The word comes out with a twist of his mouth. “Did you and Nathan have a fight? Did he admit he was cheating?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” I scream at him.
We stand there in the rain, facing each other, breathing hard, our breath mingling in a silver cloud between us.
McCarthy works his jaw then finally says, “I’m taking you home with me.”
“I don’t need a savior. I don’t need some man to come and rescue me.”
I yelp when McCarthy crouches down slightly and, in one fluid motion, grabs me around the legs and throws me over his shoulder.
“I could,” he says as I beat my numb hands on his jacket, leaving muddy prints, “give you a lecture about how you are so in over your head, Cupcake. I could tell you that it’s dangerous for a girl with no shoes and torn clothes to be wandering along a country road. But we both know that even though I’m right, even though I’ve been right this entire time, you’d rather keep the last shreds of your ego intact instead of being rational and accepting my help.”
“Your help comes with conditions,” I sputter, red-faced, as he sets me onto the back of his bike.
He leans in, his glove brushing the side of my face as he swipes the muddy hair out of my face and picks a twig out of my snarled hair.
“Most people would accept admitting you’re wrong as an acceptable condition of surrender. It’s therapist approved.” He tugs a piece of my muddy hair then works off his gloves.
Heat wafts off the engine of the bike, sending feeling into my numb, torn-up feet. I shiver with the temperature change.
McCarthy twists out of his jacket, pries my dead phone out of my grip, then picks up my arm and works it through the sleeve.
“Your jacket’s getting dirty.”
“That’s why I have staff,” he says simply, taking my other arm.
He slips my phone into the bike’s saddlebag, then he slides his glove onto my hand.
“What are you going to wear?” My teeth chatter.
His fingers brush my stomach as he works the zipper of the too-big protective jacket up. It’s misty, and he’s wearing only a thin black T-shirt. Dewy drops collect on his skin.
“My boots.” He points. “I don’t really want you riding with bare feet, but they’ll just fall off. I guess it’s going to be beneath you to tell me what the hell happened to your shoes?”
I shrug, my mouth clamped shut. I never should have gotten in the car with Nathan. I should have called a rideshare, should have taken the bus, should have done anything other than get in Nathan’s car.
I don’t need McCarthy to crow about what a dumb girl I am.
Warm fingers brush my neck as he smooths my hair, twisting it and tucking it beneath the jacket collar then slipping the helmet too gently on my head.
My mom had a number of motorcycle-riding boyfriends. She’d send them to pick me up from school or gymnastics practice or swim lessons, and yes, it was as creepy and as weird as it sounds.
Not as strange as hiking up my ruined skirt so I can straddle the bike, wrapping my arms around McCarthy’s torso with the washboard abs that feel like they were carvedfrom granite. I can make out the ridges of muscle even through the thick jacket sleeves.
His bike is way higher-end than the exhaust-spewing pieces of junk Mom’s boyfriends would drive. This thing purrs, and it goes fast.
When he seems satisfied that I know how to lean with him on the curves and keep tight to his center of mass, McCarthy speeds up until we’re flying toward the city, trying to beat the incoming storm.
His lungs expand, and I can feel his heart beat as I cling to him, my breath fogging up the slightly too-big helmet.
